My brother who has been seriously ill since June, shot him last night and I found him this morning. 160# 8 point that I have hundreds of pictures of for the last three years. He developed this hernia back while he was in full velvet and I decided we needed to take him out of the herd.

I can understand killing that deer because it was injured, and could not recover in the wild. (That must have hurt pretty bad as well) If that was your reason, then we are in full agreement. I would have put him down just because he was in so much pain. If you removed him for "The good of the herd" then I would have to disagree. hernias are not a trait that can be passed on, or breed out. they used to be called a "rupture" because the muscle wall tore, and those are most likely his intestines pushing through. Even with the hernia, he could have stood stud, though, and he does have some nice traits to pass on.

The only real difference between a good tracker and a bad tracker is observation. All the same data is present for both. The rest is understanding what you are seeing.

There's no way he could breed, I found that out for certain when I gutted him and discovered the severity of the hernia. The hernia wouldn't even allow him to pee on his tarsal glands. If you'll notice in the picture, they aren't stained at all and the rut has been going on down here for weeks. His aggressive behavior towards all of the other deer as evidenced in trail camera pictures showed that he wasn't allowing other deer to feed and he was even chasing the does away. Besides, the hernia just moved him to #1 on the hit list........he was already on the list without the hernia, since I know he was at least 3 1/2 if not 4 1/2 years old based on all of the pictures I've gotten over the last three years for certain. I lost all of my files and had to have my computer updated, so I can't positively say for certain; but I believe I had pictures of him going back 4 years. Also, the mass and antler symmetry are pretty damn fine for a SC swamp buck regardless of his age and whether or not he had the hernia.

Yeah, we also age 'em by the teeth. On one plantation that we hunt, Joe Hamilton the founder of QDMA occasionally hunts with us. Every deer killed on that plantation is aged and when Joe is hunting, he checks every doe killed and if she's pregnant he takes the fetus for their biologist to study, as well as the jaw bones of every deer killed.

On our dog club, we have a retired DNR wildlife manager who hunts with us, and he can pretty much age and tell the weight before we weigh 'em and pull the jawbones. He's usually right on the money.